No tags yet.
Part 1: The Cultural Set-Up
The chapter opens with Urashima, the strongest sumo wrestler, professing his need of gaining O-Kikus love. Mouseman goes on and tells Urashima that he can just take her by force, she’s from a lower class and he has Samurai blood, a higher class. The main point of this section of the chapter besides setting up the motivations of Urashima are to establish the current state of Wano socially. There is clear hierarchical structure to the country, which was obvious since it is based on feudal Japan. This portion establishes that the country under Orochi’s rule has tainted the citizen’s moral compass. Just as the environment is being polluted in the country, so are the people’s hearts, resulting in the higher class abusing all the resources, leaving the lower class with the scraps.
Part 2: Texas Holdem
O-Tama is brought in front of the Holdem, who has the Smile Devil fruit of the Lion. We find out the whole reason he had O-Tama kidnapped is because she was somehow able to tame wild animals. We see that Holdem has a Lion head for a stomach that he cannot control it. Putting 2 and 2 together, he want to be able to use O-Tama’s ability to tame his lion. I like what Oda did with O-Tama’s devil fruit ability in making us think it wasn’t that important, later to find out it is a very useful ability for the users of the Smile Devil Fruits. The smile devil fruits only partially transform the user. It will be interesting to find out why it seems like Momonosuke’s smile devil fruit looks like it’s the only one that actually fully transforms the user.
Part 3: Pockets too big they Sumo
Luffy, Zoro and O-Kiku enter Bakura Town and here is my favorite part of the chapter: Luffy using Kings Haki to knock out fodder (will always love that). We find out there is a sumo wrestling tournament going on where the person who defeats Urashima gets 500 gold pieces. The chapter ends with O-Kiku being taken by Urashima and then getting herself out of the situation, unsheathing her katana and cutting off Urashimas top-knot, which is a very disgraceful thing to happen to a samurai.
Conclusion
Nice little chapter that set up the cultural state of Wano. It also set-up O-Tama’s devil fruit ability to be something that Kaido himself would want to exploit and will come back in the future of this arc.
Prediction
Next chapter we will see someone take out Urashima. I think it would be funny if Luffy fought him in his fusen form. Law will show up again next chapter and they will begin discussing his plan and current state of their situation. Chapter will end with them confronting Holdem.
TO BE CONTINUED X
~S